


The Willful Child

by squishyflamingo



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Minor Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squishyflamingo/pseuds/squishyflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a child who was willful...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Willful Child

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Not beta'd or Brit-picked.

06 Jul 2014

4:30 AM; Newington, City of Edinburgh, UK

 

He was on the edge of awareness and quickly fully awake when the quiet _ping_ went off. The sniper rolled from his cot, already lacing up readily available combat boots one-handed as soft LED light from his mobile's screen provided minimal illumination in the little room.

 

Sea salt air created a cognizance in his esophagus and lungs, mind sharp.

 

The North Sea never slept, crashing and pulling against the nearby harbour like an unrelenting beast.

 

Scotland, because how deliciously ironic was it to hide in the home of Dr. John H. Watson's ancestry, take work and make temporary home here as he waited in the wings all this time.

 

Just in case.

 

Just in case Sherlock Holmes was indeed that merciless and that clever.

 

It was why James Moriarty had died with a gunpowder burn smile on his face, wasn't it?

 

“ _Finally, freedom, to have found someone just like_ _ **me**_.”

 

Sebastian thumbed through the e-mail carefully, in the strange and innocuous code that had been created between every informant, every assassin.

 

A fairytale.

 

He absorbed the single sentence into his very psyche.

 

 **All the king's horses and all the king's men** _**were** _ **able to put Humpty back together again.**

 

Cyphered coordinates lay beneath.

 

He stood on the cabin's porch in just jeans, chilled air like whips along his lashes, a strange legato between his ears as he burned down, down another drag of his cigarette.

 

The train from Edinburgh to London departed soon, and despite his engrained military punctuality he indulged in a bit more of the early grey outside in lieu of brevity.

 -

06 Jul 2014

6:45 AM; Shepherd's Bush,London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, London

 

Mum always said she wasn't a 'morning person' – it was half true. Harry hated the _waking up_ part, but the mornings themselves were bang on brilliant.

 

A quick shower, fag, cuppa and lungful of chill spring air later Harry continued lounging on the sixth floor flat balcony in her bra and knickers, caring fuck all as the dichotomy of the city unfurled before her.

 

Stormy clouds above, calm denizens below she offered a coquettish smile before retreating. She leaned through for a quick glimpse of the pretty strawberry blonde still slumbering in bed with only a haphazardly tangled duvet for modesty, her smile growing.

 

_Ask me for a star – I think I may be able to grab one today._

 

A text had awoken her, only because she assigned the most obnoxious of text tones to the sender as insurance they were never missed, and damn if she slightly regretted a job well done with picking the Imperial March.

 

Johnny would have tittered with that annoyingly charming giggle of his and said, “Really, Harry. You're a grown woman.”

 

And she would have retorted, “You just rang me yesterday about how Captain America: The Winter Soldier changed your life and you needed to tell someone because you still think Mary isn't aware you're actually 40 going on 10, you berk.”

 

She almost fell over as she wiggled into her day old work skirt, stifling her mirth so as not to wake Aislin, and wondered if perhaps she could pop over for a visit.

 

No, no – her parcel was ready so she needed to go get it as soon as possible. Maybe later...

 

Harry swilled some coffee while thumbing a cheerful **Tea @ Zizzis?? :)** into her mobile **,** sent it off to her brother, then hunted for a rogue biro and penned a short but sweet note to Aislin about having a superb night, dinner later? Etc.

 

Just ooone last look into the room and – yes, that's what mama likes. That lovely arse would keep her spank bank going for awhile. Thank God and all his angels that worked on that masterpiece as Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel.

 

The elder Watson sibling put her ear buds in as she exited the building's lift, getting lost in some Lindsey Buckingham and Big Love. Some big, big love.

 - 

06 Jul 2014

10:50 AM; Kings Cross, London

 

Cramped quarters never bothered Sebastian much – he'd been a soldier once upon a time – but getting out into the open after almost 5 hours on the train felt good. The pre-buzz tightening his trained muscles, folded into a coil, a trigger happy high, burned in his veins.

 -

06 Jul 2014

11 AM; ???, London

 

The doorman peered at her mutely, eyebrow raised with imperious intent.

 

Harry had taken her ear buds out and gave her best purebred smile, not saying a word, and handed over a small card.

 

The doorman read it, inclined his head, quickly retrieving a beautiful doll. She took it, smile positively salacious, and when one of the gentleman silently perched in an overstuffed armchair behind the doorman glanced her way she winked.

 

He sputtered, tea nearly sailing onto the plush carpet.

 

Too easy.

 -

 06 Jul 2014

11 AM; Westminster Abbey, London

 

The small tourist crowd cleared back out of the abbey in a meticulous trickle – the guide so preoccupied with one Canadian's infatuation with the ceiling of the Musicians’ Aisle Sebastian slipped through the employee corridors as easy as breathing.

 

It was Sunday so everyone was doing their preordained duty, and not a soul loitered around that would get him caught. Except one employee that mattered.

 

The sniper made it to a custodian closet just as a young man meets him there, all spots and frazzled nerves, handing him the rucksack that should technically be at Charing Cross's luggage facility, and exchanges it for a wad of notes that would make even a member of parliament breathe heavily.

 

The kid scarpers, prompting him to move on to the (assuredly) empty octagonal space of the Chapter House. A small part of him stands in awe of its spectacular painting renditions of the Apocalypse and The Last Judgment.

 

Another bit of poetic justice that he kill his mark here.

 

The coil in him reaches its breaking point, warmth in his belly, tongue flashing out to lick at the sweat just there.

 

This is it.

 

This is the end.

 

He takes out his victory cigar from the rucksack's pocket first, laying it on the floor. He catches under the stained glasses windows the etched inscription of the original masons “In the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.”

 

Amen.

 

It'll be simple to ease a portion of the glass out for his rifle-

 

That's when the Chapter House door creaks open, slowly, irrecoverably. He is poised, a tense tiger ready to pounce, and in slides a harmless, petite bottle blonde woman that could be his age if the doll in her arms didn't completely offset her well-tailored dress suit and ill-fitting trainers.

 

She has a lighter clutched in one hand, cigarette ready in her mouth. When she sees him the cigarette falls, she cusses and fumbles, patting her chest. “Fuck me, er, I-I'm sorry. I wasn't going to, umm, light up in...oh. It looks like you had the same idea!” she amends awkwardly, noticing his cigar on the floor, and when he doesn't answer, staring at the doll, she has the grace to flush. “Ah, it's for one of the reverend’s daughters. I'm her godmother.”

 

Sebastian throws on a thick and practiced veneer of charm as he straightens up. Pedestrian niceties. This won't take long.

 

“I'm sorry I scared you. Getting some good pictures for a mag I work for.” A _click, flick_ and he offers her a light.

 

“Mm, ta,” she beams beatifically, handing out the doll. “Hold this for a mo, yeah?”

 

He reached out to take it--

 

“Shit,” she murmured like she'd ripped her tights and not botched up a shot, “That was meant to go between the eyes. Still bollocksed it up, even this close.” Cobalt blue irises are still shining, pupils dilated, thin lips curving with indecent glee.

 

It's the element of surprise that mattered, and Sebastian is gobsmacked. He feels like a wet-behind-the-ears trainee lambasted with a flash bomb. Palm to a nicked carotid artery he drops the doll that had concealed the weapon she'd shot him with, leering in disbelief.

 

9mm bullet. KAC suppressor. British Army equipment designation Sig Sauer P226R.

 

John H. Watson's sidearm.

 

“I'm just borrowing it for a bit. Though he doesn't know.” Harriet Watson (sister, he'd barely gleaned her name once while reading his target's dossier) put a finger to her mouth in a bid of playful secrecy. “Bringing it back, I promise. I have to say, Moran. Your face right now. It's a bit perfect. Is this how Jimmy felt? Surprise!” She threw her hands out, kicking him down with her trainers in a astonishing show of strength. “Have to thank those Tae Bo videos for that. Or _maybe_ this is how Sherlock will feel when he rises like Lazarus, back from the dead to bromance my brother into his arms. Poncy showoff.”

 

Sebastian struggled to assert more control over the situation – he was bleeding much too quickly (could have been dead in an instant if she'd gotten closer) and no amount of experience, pressure or last-minute ruminations over religion could ease him through a fatal wound like this.

 

Fucking hell.

 

His tear ducts betray his pain and he laughs wetly, the tang of blood acrid behind his teeth. Jim would have found this hilarious. This woman had no reserves for what she had just done.

 

It wasn't just about protection. This was triumph.

  -

 “As you can tell I'm a bit new at this. It's actually meant to be just a one-off.” Harry squatted down, gun slack between her gloved fingers. “Sherlock's too busy with Mycroft cleaning up a little mess with one of your co-conspirators in Ukraine in a dramatic flourish that unfooortunately may have alerted the local press, and well – Mycroft had his hands tied, poor lamb.” She jutted out her bottom lip, mimicking her wrists being bound.

 

“Mycroft, along with nearly half of the United Nations, are all running amok because of you and Moriarty's beautiful web all tangled around the world. Johnny taught me how to shoot a gun on one of our amazing little bonding days. It's amazing what the steps of alcohal recovery can do for a relationship," she recited by rote, right out of a pamphlet. "So, there was...me. And can you believe it, Sherlock came up with the idea! He knew that you'd be alerted he was still alive, so using sources from your late Ukrainian assassin-friend he fed you a bit of good news to eat up! Mycroft already had your trace by then and with some invasive MI6 magic I could follow you aaall the way here.”

 

Bless...you felt a fly on your strand, came this entire way only for it to be Harry. No John. I have to admit...this feels good.” A softness creeps into her voice.

 

That recalcitrant part of her had to admit she practically _glowed_ at the fact Sherlock Holmes didn't care a fucking lick that she was a lesbian, that she couldn't hold a relationship, that she was a recovering alcoholic. He just knew, and that was enough – she was solved, deduced, stored in his bloody mental Hanger 51 of useless rubbish. That aside, she loved John and like every other person on Earth, not limited to Sherlock himself, wanted a bit of redemption.

 

Especially when it came to keeping Dr. John H. Watson safe.

 

Their unarguably common denominator.

 

This time she got to play Hero.

 

“Really, don't be so hard on yourself. I wouldn't have foreseen this. Hell, Johnny told me when the prick first tried to do his deduction shtick the one thing he'd gotten wrong of my brother's life was my gender. That even he, to the great Consulting Detective...there's always _something_. Now, no need to talk, love. I'll get it right this time. Johnny always did say...it was all about follow through.”

 -

She brought up the gun again, the muzzle flush against Sebastian's temple, the familiar scent of gun oil turned on him for once, and with a modicum of begrudging respect he willfully accepted death with the adage 'Hell hath no fury' and spoken words, “by my mother's blessing.”

  -

“Hiya Johnny, you alright?" Harry continued walking away from the Diogenes Club, sans doll, and saw the sky had cleared of its stormy overcast. "Yeah? I'm grand, petal...Zizzis in Covent – half passed 8? Perf! I'll bring Aislin – you'll love her. She's more into football than any of my work mates....Damn, I forgot Mary's in Brighton. That's fine – bring whoever you like! I'm sure you'll find someone knocking about.”

 

 


End file.
